Hiring, onboarding and training talent is part of running a business and managing a team. Business owners accept that they need to invest time and money into attracting and developing people to get the best out of them. What they have a much harder time doing is spending time and money on getting their technology right, even though the right technology has the power to do the work of multiple people in less time with less hassle.
Technology does not take annual leave, and it does not need affirmation or bonuses. It doesn’t drink coffee, eat lunch or sleep.
If advisers thought of technology, specifically AI and automation, as digital employees and treated licensing, customising and upgrading software as just another essential business expense, they’d be able to speed up the delivery of advice and gain significant operational and cost efficiencies.
They’d be able to deliver a better client experience, put capacity back into the system to fuel growth, and improve employee satisfaction by taking repetitive, mundane tasks off people and giving them more interesting work.
For around $5000 a month, advice businesses can create a digital employee to perform rules-based tasks like gathering information, booking meetings, drafting documents, updating software and responding to general enquiries.
Potential automation
Based on analysis of the advice process conducted by Yarra Lane and Vital Business Partners (VBP), around 30 tasks can potentially be automated, including cleaning and interrogating data, generating advice documents and flagging suspicious activity.
At first glance, $60,000 a year for a digital employee may not sound cheap, considering that the starting salary for an administration assistant is around that mark, depending on location.
At the top end, administration assistants/client service officers command $80,000 to $90,000 a year plus super, plus bonus.
But no matter how fast, diligent and self-motivated a person is, they can still only work a limited number of hours per day – legally, 7.6.
That’s assuming businesses can attract and retain talent at all.
According to Jobs and Skills Australia, 139 occupations in Australia have experienced a “persistent shortage” since 2021, including 52 “professional” occupations.
However, the number of digital employees is potentially infinite, and they’re not limited to a 38-hour week. Digital employees can work continuously 24/7, 365 days a year. The only limitation is the ability of businesses to create and develop these technologies.
Interestingly, the 2025 Occupation Shortage List, compiled by Jobs and Skills Australia, found that the status of 7 per cent of occupations changed from shortage in 2024 to no shortage in 2025, with the government agency citing the integration of AI technology as the main reason.
Widening technology gap
In the near future, digital employees will be commonplace in advice businesses, as the operational, cost and employee benefits of AI and automation become better understood and quantified. Already the impact of AI and automation can be seen in industries and sectors like manufacturing, healthcare and retail, which have been experimenting with these technologies for years.
Consider the self-assisted checkouts used by grocery and retail stores, airlines and government service centres.
Since their introduction in the late 2000s, self-assisted checkouts have delivered benefits to both retailers and customers including speed and efficiency, 24/7 availability, and reduced operational costs.
Supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles are also investing over $1 billion in state-of-the-art distribution centres that use robots to move groceries to stores faster.
Quick technology wins
Advice businesses stand to post quick wins from using AI and automation because many are starting from a low base. They haven’t progressed much beyond filenoting.
But the gap between firms that effectively use these technologies and those that don’t will become very apparent over the next 12-18 months, as innovative firms pull away from the pack.
Sophisticated firms are already redesigning advice processes to develop agentic workflows that integrate people, AI and automation.
Advice businesses that don’t have a technology strategy and are still struggling to wrap their heads around AI and automation need to look at technology through the lens of digital labour to build understanding and comfort.
Furthermore, it’s often said that “people are a business’s greatest asset” and in professional services that is unquestionably true. Holding on to good people is critical but talented people leave organisations all the time for myriad reasons. Some reasons are beyond an organisation’s control; however, others like boredom, lack of fulfilment and poor management are firmly within their control.
Using digital employees to perform menial, rules-based tasks can boost employee satisfaction by giving individuals more meaningful, stimulating and enjoyable work.
This is another important reason for advice businesses to accelerate the adoption and integration of AI and automation into their systems and processes.
Nick Perrett is chief executive of Yarra Lane Group and also consults to Vital Business Partners’ Intelligent Automation Division.
